Who has actually had to "draw" on a potential BG?

J

Joseph

New member
A shooter in another thread told about drawing on a potential Bad Guy. That brought up comments on when and where it's acceptable to "draw".

I found it very important information, and would like to hear more experiences from any who would like to pass them around as a way of helping tp educate those of us who have not been in a similar threat.

Thanks.
 
Read "The Best Defense."

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"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity." - Sigmund Freud
Hey - have you seen the new Ultimate Super Tactical Match Gun?
 
George,

Good suggestion.

What I found great about the discussion in the forum was that it was interactive. The shooter wrote about an experience and we all could then ask specific questions. That was more than a little helpful.

Roon
 
Hi Joseph,

My personal standard is to draw only when I've made the decision to go to Condition Red. There are a couple of factors here. The kind of threat I'm facing will drive what I do with the weapon next. The exacts of the weapon and the proximity of the BG(s) are also factors. As a general guide line, the closer and more numerous they are, the less I'll worry about public sensabilities.

I have to clarify one thing - I may get my weapon in my hand (draw it) but may never display it. (hopefully never!)

The last time this happened, I had a guy block my car in and move very aggressively towards me and my wife. I beat him out of the truck (I was in my driveway) and solved the problem verbally. He never knew I had a locked and cocked .45 behind my thigh.

So - I draw when things are getting bad - but I try not to display the weapon unless I have no choice. I will not point the weapon at a guy until I am flat prepared to pull the trigger. Remember the 2nd rule of firearms safety - never let your muzzle cover anything your not prepared to see destroyed.

Giz

[This message has been edited by Gizmo99 (edited December 07, 1999).]
 
Joseph,

Everything is going to depend greatly on where you live. I have said this before and I will say it again. If you decide to CCW or so called home protection, go see a criminal attorney first. Believe me, it is a big eye opener and a huge reality check. Laws very greatly from state to state. What is legal in lets say Texas, may be illegal where you live. We live in very strange time, many prosecuting attorneys are itching to take away your freedom in order to put a notch on their political belts. Get the facts before you draw a firearm, it is $200 well spent.

Robert
 
While in the military, I was occasionally in a situation where things could have gone bad.
I wasn't in combat, nor did I have to ever fire my weapon. Also, my PRIMARY weapon was the M-16. So that is different than having just a handgun.

However, it did teach me a lot about being in situations where deadly force may be need to be used.

Some lessons learned:
You practice the way you would fight... or as close to real as you can make it.

You need to know - without "thinking" about it - when, and under what situations, deadly force is authorized. You don't want to use D.F., then have the courts say it wasn't justified.

Having said that: NEVER pull your weapon until the criteria to use deadly force has been met. BUT... be ready to pull it BEFORE the situation gets that far.

Once your weapon is pulled... use verbal commands or words to warn off the "target": i.e. "stop!", "get away from me!", "I don't want to shoot you!", "help!", etc... now, assuming that you are a CIVIALIAN and NOT using your weapon in an official capacity, the preceding words are NOT necessarily to keep the bad guy(s) from getting shot. They are more for the witnesses ears AFTER the shooting. You want to be able to demonstrate that you REALLY did NOT want to shoot, but that you were FORCED into the situation.

Along the same lines, when you are YELLING at the BG, RETREAT as much as you can... NOT because you are scared, but because you are 1) trying to put space between you and BG; and 2) because you want to demonstrate that you are TRYING to keep from using deadly force.

Lastly, carrying a weapon involves 2 factors: 1) proficiency & skill with weapon
2) knowledge of tactics. You need to master both. Once you do... you need NEVER fear any situation.

So... tell me... what do you think? Am I full of Sh**? Or does the above sound like good advice?
 
I unfortunately have had the reason and opportunity to draw on BG's more than a few times because of my work. I travel to alot of third world countries and sometimes things get sticky. Guys that tell you that it was fine, that they just aimed center mass and that macho crap and they didnt have the shakes afterwards are BSing you. Once in Sudan I got caught in a major snafu when an idiot I was traveling with my partner and we were ferrying an idiot who didnt like the 12 yr old soldiers constantly pointing AKs at us when ever we stopped. He got a little hot. He eventually exploded when at one checkpoint there were two soldiers, me and him and his wife. A soldier went thru her bag and found her underclothes. We they went nuts.. I don't think they had ever seen a bra before. Well, the guy goes berserk and shoves the soldier while grabbing the bra. He was just a little thing and he went down on his ass. The other guy sweeps us with his muzzle and takes a step forward. My thought is that we're dead. So if I'm going to go I'm not going easy. He's walking towards them, while I'm on his left and as he approaches he glances at his friend trying to extricate himself from the mess on the ground (he tripped over the table) and I draw my Sig on him and got his attention by calling him. While my partner drew and covered the guy on the ground. The standoff lasted about 30 seconds all the while I'm ****ting bricks and sweating like a stuck pig. In the end, we negotiated a little settlement. The dropped the AKs and we put up our weapons and I made the guy give them the bra (since they were so amazed by it) and a hundred dollars US. Everything ended "sava" as they say, but I had the cold sweats at night for weeks.

That kind of thing is why I thing writers like Ayoob and Taflin are full of crap. No one who really faces that acts like it's nothing the next day. It affects you in a major way for the rest of your life. It doesnt get easier, because every time you draw you face the knowledge that you and everyone else in that confrantational area are that close to dying. Personally, I really like live and have no death wish you know?
 
One of the most important things in self-defense is, I believe, to always have a means of retreat. If in a dangerous neighborhood, you should know how and where to get away if accosted. The danger is in meeting mutiple individuals, where even if you take one out, the others will get you.

Any display of a weapon is confrontational, and likely to draw fire, so be ready to shoot.
 
damiano, with all due respect, I think you may be thinking of someone else regarding this macho behavior - from what I've seen, Ayoob would be in complete agreement with you. In his LFI class he makes these realities crystal clear, with no macho BS.

Joseph, consider Ayoob's book 'StressFire', and get a good book on gun laws - see http://www.gunlaws.com

Take a CCW course if they are offered in your area, whether or not you get a permit - the course is worth it. Also, look for a FATS simulator in your area - these are very helpful for tactics and shoot / no-shoot training, in combination with a good instructor. (FATS is a computerized, interactive 'movie', with a pistol connected to the computer by cable. A scenario is shown on a screen, and the system can show you whether you drew in time, where your shots hit, etc. Very good training tool.)
 
What Damiano writes about is the kind of thing you can't get out of a CCW class, which I'm taking shortly. It's the nuts and bolts of being a human being in a very unhuman condition: the threat of death, pure and simple.

Please don't misunderstand me, I *really appreciate* the references to the books and classes. But this forum gives us all an opportunity to discuss with people *like ourselves* what it is like to be in a horrible situation.

Damiano, thanks for going back over your experiences. I would imagine you still get a gut reaction when you think about it.

By the way, I agree that the law is extremely important to this discussion. I am setting up an appointment to get exactly that kind of counsel.

We have a joke here in the South that a valid defense for shooting somebody is that "he needed killing!" But believe me, it ain't so.

Keep 'em coming, and thanks for all of the great advice.

Roon
 
I'd also say Ayoob is not all that cavalier; in his recent review of Charles Askins' gunfighting experiences he commented that one of the most disturbing things about Askins was his lack of remorse, shakes, regret, fear, etc. when in a gunfight. Some of Askins' own writings were included and it was indeed creepy. In one account he recalled that he hadn't been too bothered when a fellow border patrolman was killed because he hadn't liked him much anyway.
Askins sounded like a great gunfighter--solo--but I don't know if I'd like to have been on his team . . .

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Don

"Its not criminals that go into schools and shoot children"
--Ann Pearston, British Gun Control apologist and moron
 
I am happy to say that I have never had to draw a gun and point it a bad guy at any point, but I did have cause once to draw my weapon and prepare to defend myself.

Me and a friend were once exiting his place of business and heading for my car when we noticed an old sedan slowly cruising out of the parking lot and exiting the lot about 75' from us. The car turned right, stopped, and the male passenger said "There's one" and reached for the floor as the driver acellerated, apparently heading back into the other side of the lot. I grabbed my Glock from the trunk (which was open at that moment) and hid it behind my back. My friend stepped up and loosened his shirt to get at his Colt .38. The car came to a halt right behind my car, blocking us in. (Skipping some details here for the sake of brevity). The situation was defused a few seconds later by 4 responding LEOs who had been alerted to the situation by persons in the building.

The good news is, they were not armed, they were not trying to kill us. They were drunk, pissed off, and looking for a LEO. You see, my friend is a cop, and this all happened 50' from the front door of his police station. It is ironic that the first time I ever had to draw and prepare to use a firearm was in the d**n parking lot of a police station.

Don't ever say "It can't happen to me."
 
I saw this message earlier and hesitated to respond. I'll post my experience anyway but please keep in mind that I am not a bad guy and do not go looking for trouble.

Here's the flipside of this query. Once while working for a production company(in L.A.), I was driving around a bad part of town running errands. Turning right into a large intersection, some *sshole runs a yellow/red and almost hits me. He flips me off, I flip him off. I notice him following me throught the next couple of lights. Green late model Honda, driver was a rather wimpy looking white male in his late 30's. He was honking his horn, flipping me off and mouthing "pussy" all while signaling to pull over. I ignored him at first, but as we neared my destination, I realized a confrontation was inevitable. Now, not that I'm arrogant or immodest, but I would be lying if I didn't say I'm a rather large man (6'0 250lbs), and most of my weight is muscle. this guy behind me couldn't of weighed more than 150 lbs. So when I pulled over, I knew that just by getting out of the car, this guy would probably scram. Anyways, I pull over, he pulls up behind me. I stepped out of my car, and started for his driver side window. As I approached, he looked really nervous and scared. something was wrong, I got up to the window and in his lap was a glock of some sort. I looked at him, looked at the gun, called him a bitch and headed back for my car. Now this is the part that really gets me ! He steps out, shaking like an epileptic, and points the gun at me all the while telling me he's a cop. Now, this is in a major intersection of Los angeles in the middle of the day ! And then he drops his gun ! what an *sshole ! Needless to say I got in my truck and got the hell out of there. classic example of someone who should not own a gun.

P.S. lesson learned--- Ignore people when you drive in L.A., I'm sure I'm not the only one with this kind of experience.
 
I suppose seeing the replies that I should clarify something. When I made the remarks about Ayoob, et al, some assumed I was throwing all they teach out the window. I wasn;t. Reading my post again (which I wrote in a real hurry, hence the spelling errors, sorry.) What I said is probably based on my opinion that the things he writes in the mags is very arrogant and snobbish. I've been to several of his varied classes and loved the classes, but in honesty I still don't like his personality. I just find his articles, not very useful. Everything he's ever written (in the mags mind you) has never helped me overseas in those situations. But his classes did help me. I guess the audience he writes for in the mags is relatively narrow. I do so much traveling in the 3rd world and all the nice "Justification" and "Strategy" articles simply do not apply there. I've pulled and fired under circumstances that here would get me put away but there, the locals buy you a drink and slap your back.
I guess it's all perspective.
 
Joseph,
on occasions, I have the oppurtunity to deal with possible bad guys.
My first question would be what is your definition of a "bad guy"?
Just because a person (or 2) wants to scrap with you, your family, or your friends doesnt necessarily warrant a gun being drawn for self defense.
Take time and read the law codes that deal with the use of deadly force. most use wording such as "reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or serious bodily injury".
To pull a gun simply as a scare tactic will inevitably end up with you being dead or in jail.
Soooo... If deadly force applies, and you can live with the circumstances, shoot straight. If not, keep it holstered and fight with both hands.
Ek
 
WHOA HORSE!

ek127, I have no desire to flame you - but that is a silly statement.

For the newbies - there is always a possibility of a shooting if there is a gun at a fight. If you have the gun, you are responsible. Do not let others get your gun. Do not engage in a fist fight if your armed.

ek127, I think that is seriously bad advice. Feel free to write me. My email is on my info sheet.

Giz
 
Hey Gizmo, EK is right for the most part. Let me setup a example. If, say we three are at the local mall parking lot trying to find parking and we find one. We park. Upon exiting the car, a second party gets into a verbal pissing match with us over taking this parking space. We are tough guys, so we tell this party to XYZ. From there it escalates to a little pushing and shoving. And then, the fight breaks out. You, Gizmo, draw your firearm in order to stop the fight and the police come. You go to jail, EK and I have to go bail you out. You are charged with a series of felonies.

Again, this is going to vary greatly on where you live. Here in Oregon, with all our liberal carry laws, one of the easiest stringent in the lower 48, this act is a felony. According to the law here, the second we engaged that second party, we agreed to mutual combat. We had to fight and get our butt kicked, because I am not a good street fighter. They would have had me down in about two second and gone after you. ;)

Robert



[This message has been edited by Robert the41MagFan (edited December 10, 1999).]
 
This is a great post guys, keep em' coming.

"Get rid of that Nickel Plated Sissy Pistol, get yourself a Glock" Tommy Lee Jones / U.S. Marshalls
 
Dad2Jane,
Not sure why I am the only one to notice, but great post. I think you summed up my feelings on the situation well..
As for having a gun in a fist fight, not gonna happen... I imagine there are times when I could not avoid it. But the chances of an unavoidable situation is little to none. If it is in my power, I will never fist fight with a gun in my possesion...
Without a gun? heh... that's a different story.

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"...you're thinkin was that 5 shots or was it 6? Well, you've gotta ask yourself one question: Do you feel lucky??? ...Well, do ya PUNK!?!?
 
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